Embodiments of the inventive concept described herein relate to a semiconductor memory, and more particularly, to a memory system, a memory controller for a memory system, an operation method of a memory controller, and an operation method of a user device including a memory system.
Semiconductor memories are classified into volatile memory devices in which stored data disappear when power is interrupted and nonvolatile memory devices in which stored data are retained even when power is interrupted.
A flash memory device, which is a type of nonvolatile memory device, is widely used as a mass storage medium of a user device. As computing technology develops, there is a continual demand for improvement in the performance of a flash memory based mass storage medium. For example, the flash memory based mass storage medium uses a high-speed buffer memory such as a random access memory to make up for a difference between input/output speeds of a host and the storage medium. However, there is a limitation on improvement in performance due to factors such as a limited capacity of the high-speed buffer memory or limitations in the ability to guarantee the reliability of data to be stored in a flash memory.